D'Artagnan the Elder discovered what happened to an almost new doublet
by MlledeLaRoseBlanche
Summary: Two days after her son's departure, Madame D'Artagnan's little secret is discovered.


**This is just something a bit simpler that I was inspired to write randomly one evening as I lay in bed and was thinking about how, in the novel, it mentions that D'Artagnan knew how to sew as he had dressed up his clothes with a gift from his mother before going to see M. de Tréville near the end of the first chapter. **

**Curse for not having enough space for titles...**

Where M. D'Artagnan the Elder discovered what happened to his almost new doublet

In a house in Gascony, a woman past her prime grunted as she beat her fists into floured dough on the table, pounding out the air with wrinkled, muscled hands and pausing only to tuck a wisp of greying brown hair back behind her ear. Across from her, a young woman, one of the servants kept as part of the household, was shaping another mound of dough into a loaf-like shape on the bread shovel, preparing it for the oven. She could have simply asked the younger woman to make all the bread, as Madame D'Artagnan and mistress of the house she had her rights, but they were nothing more than minor country nobility whose living offered little future to her only son, now gone to Paris two days prior, and sometimes there was too much work to be done by one woman, Marie, and one man, her husband's personal servant.

"Marie, keep an eye on that loaf now. Remember that it needs to be softer for Monsieur," said the woman, removing her apron, wiping her hands clean of flour on it then covering the resting dough with it.

"Yes Madame," said Marie, the servant, dipping her head to the older woman before she carefully slid the wooden shovel into the oven, wiggled the pole under her hands gently and finally pulled back, her forehead beaded with sweat. Madame D'Artagnan drew a clean handkerchief from her sleeve, dipped it into a pitcher of cool water, and washed the sweat from her own brow, Marie coming over to do much the same, when a man's voice called out irately.

"Ma femme, come here at once!" ordered Monsieur D'Artagnan from his rooms, which consisted only of his bedchamber and an office in which to manage his accounts. Marie regarded her mistress with ill-disguised curiosity, but Madame D'Artagnan said nothing, taking time to let out a soft sigh before she turned to leave the kitchen and climb the stairs. The door to her husband's bedchamber stood open, waiting for her. It had only been a matter of time before he had discovered what she had done. She quieted entered, her damp handkerchief clasped in her folded hands resting over her skirts and she regarded the irritated gaze of Monsieur D'Artagnan patiently, waiting for him to speak. His short-clipped, grey curls did nothing to hide neither the stiffness of his wide jaw nor the redness of his ears. His carefully trimmed moustache bristled like a disturbed caterpillar in the middle of his long, thin face as he stood facing her in the same dark green suit he had worn two days ago with its puffy, slashed breeches that ended mid-thigh and the tight, squared doublet that ended seamlessly at his neck, which was adorned with a stiff, starched, pleated collar.

"Do you know what I discovered when I went to dress this morning?" he demanded. She blinked at him and smiled demurely.

"I believe you would like to tell me, my dear husband," she said simply. He frowned at her and from his wardrobe pulled his best doublet laid bare of its lace cuffs and collar and the ornamental braiding that had covered the seams. He held it out to her, almost under her nose, his arm stiff.

"Would you care to explain to me how this doublet of mine came to be without its trappings when I only wore it four days ago?"

"You asked me to mend it for you, do you not remember?" she said carefully. "You had told me that a little of the braiding was coming free under the arm thus I repaired it."

"You call removing everything from it a repair? _Mordious_ ma femme, you are mad to think I would accept such a lie! What have you done with the lace and the braid?"

"I gave them to your son, Monsieur," she said, lifting her chin proudly. "You desire him to present himself at Court and distinguish himself thus he must look the part of a gentleman's son."

"And what the Devil am I supposed to wear?" he asked, almost pouting, his anger as suddenly deflated as a bucket leaking water. Madame D'Artagnan approached him and laid a gentle hand on his arm.

"I will fix it, my dear," she said, "and you will be as gallant as you ever were." Regaining his composure from that petulant child, he bid her to have it done and excused himself to his office. She followed him from his bedchamber and waited until he had shut the office door before releasing the breath she had held back, smiling softly.

_Men do become such children as they grow older,_ she thought as she headed off to locate her needle, her thread, and her sewing basket.


End file.
